Israel is a long way from facing a threat to its very existence. We are too strong, both economically and militarily, for that. If anything threatens Israel, it is this form of paranoid thought that makes us think: "Oh God, they're going to kill us in two seconds! What should we do?"

When I introduced my economic plan for the first time, people had mixed views because it's the largest cut in the history of Israeli budgets. We have a big deficit caused by the fact that the former government took upon itself too many obligations.

The majority of Israelis want change, the Netanyahu era is coming to an end. That's not because security issues don't matter but because social and economic issues are dominating the agenda.

There is a difference between a small community being herded into a park and murdered and all of these communities joining forces to make sure that something like that will not happen again.

Israel is a tremendous success story. When I arrived, there were 600,000 Jews living here. Today there are close to 6 million. We have one of the world's top high-tech industries and a high standard of living. There is only one thing we haven't achieved: Making the country safer for Jews.

When you look at the history of wars, they ultimately revolve around one claim: "My god is better than yours."

I don't think Israel's becoming more religious, I think its politics is becoming more religious. There's a difference.